Anthony Kenny introduces our new mini-series.
Moralists and theologians enjoy attaching numbers to quite abstract entities, such as the Four Cardinal Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins.
The enthusiasm for enumerations can be seen already in Plato. He set out three parts of the soul: reason, temper and appetite. Each part had its characteristic virtue: prudence for reason, fortitude for temper and temperance for appetite.
Harmony between the three parts was brought about by justice which thus appears as the fourth cardinal virtue. These four virtues are cardinal (from the Latin cardo, hinge): they are the hinges that provide the framework for the exercise of particular virtues. Christianity added to the four “natural” virtues the three “theological” virtues of faith, hope and charity, thereby completing a set of seven – known sometimes as the Seven Heavenly Virtues.
